Friday, April 28, 2006

"..a lot of my right-wing friends are quick to point out that the old "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" doctrine, which ostesibly led to these gigantic blunders in foreign policy, is no longer in use.

That may be true, but I must have missed the press conference when they announced that and admitted that it had all been a terrible, terrible, mistake.

How does anyone expect us to be taken seriously considering the past?

When exactly is the cutoff date for the US support of terrorism? 1989? 1992? 2000? No, it is clearly September 11th, 2001 when the United States finally realized that terrorism was bad news. Before then, as Hamas would say, it was a perfectly legitimate response to aggression.

Or if I might amplify; "Do unto others what you would have them do unto you."

When you have utterly intractable problems of any sort, that generally points to a situation where the people controlling the situation have no interest in resolving the situation. So playing the "blame game" is simply a smoke screen.

Of course, terrorists should pay for their crimes. But that response is a day late and a dollar short. The issue is not the odd terrorist here or there; the issue is that terrorism is seen as the logical response to whatever. As a broad generality, that is due to there being a lack of other options.

Sun Tsu observed in the Art of War that it was important to always allow your opponent an avenue of escape; the opportunity to choose to not fight.

If you wish to "win" any meaningful prize in war, or war by other means, you have to make it profitable for the other side to blink first.

Other observations about cornered rats and rabbits are to be taken as given. In order stem the plague of terrorism - don't terrify people. It's wrong. And it's wrong because of... (Bob waves vaguly towards the Middle East.)